Wednesday, August 24, 2011

United Airlines pilots to use iPad for navigation Latest image 2012.
United Airlines said Tuesday it was replacing the hefty flight manuals and chart books its pilots have long used with 11,000 iPads carrying the same data.

United Airlines said Tuesday it was replacing the hefty flight manuals and chart books its pilots have long used with 11,000 iPads carrying the same data.
The 1.5 pound (0.7 kilogram) iPad will take the place of about 38 pounds (17 kilograms) of paper instructions, data and charts pilots have long used to help guide them, parent company United Continental Holdings said.
The popular tablet computer will carry the Mobile FliteDeck software app from Jeppesen, a Boeing subsidiary which provides navigation tools for air, sea and land.
"The paperless flight deck represents the next generation of flying," said Captain Fred Abbott, United's senior vice president of flight operations.
"The introduction of iPads ensures our pilots have essential and real-time information at their fingertips at all times throughout the flight."
It will be supplied to all pilots on United and Continental flights; the two carriers merged in 2010.
United is the second major US carrier to adopt the iPad as a key pilot flight aid.
In May Alaska Airlines also adopted it, after the Federal Aviation Administration okayed the iPad for cockpit use.
United estimates that using the iPad will save 16 million sheets of paper a year, and that the lighter load it represents will save 326,000 gallons (1.2 million liters) in fuel.
"With iPad, pilots are able to quickly and efficiently access reference material without having to thumb through thousands of sheets of paper and reduce clutter on the flight deck," the company said.(c) 2011 AFP

Space Ship of Russia 'crashes' after failed launch Latest image
A NASA image released on June 7, 2011 shows the International Space Station (ISS) and the docked space shuttle Endeavour, flying at an altitude of around 220 miles. A Russian cargo space ship has failed to reach the proper orbit shortly after blasting off for the ISS news agencies quoted space industry sources as saying.

A Russian supply ship carrying cargo for the International Space Station on Wednesday failed to reach orbit shortly after blast-off, with reports saying it may have crashed into the Earth.
The unmanned Progress-M-12M vessel was carrying some several tonnes of supplies for the international crew on board the space station but failed to reach the correct orbit, Russian space agency Roskosmos said.
"According to preliminary information, on the 325th second, there was an operating problem with the propulsion system that led to its emergency shutdown," Roskosmos said in a statement.
"The Progress M-12M cargo craft was not placed in its assigned orbit," said the two-sentence statement.
The Interfax news agency quoted a source as saying it may have crashed into Siberia while RIA Novosti said it could have hit Russia's Altai region on the border with Mongolia and China.
RIA Novosti quoted a local official in the Gorni Altai region as saying a blast had been heard at a distance of 100 kilometres but there were no reports of casualties.
The cargo vessel had blasted off at 5:00 pm Moscow time (1300 GMT) on a Soyuz-U rocket from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Interfax news agency said it was the first problem with a Russian or Soviet cargo delivery to space since 1978.
A Russian space expert said the accident should not immediately threaten the safety of the six-person crew because they had a two-to-three months supply of fuel and oxygen.
"But considering that the (US) shuttles no longer fly, Russian mission control may decide to reduce the size of the ISS crew because of supply problem," analyst Sergei Puzanov told Interfax.
RIA Novosti also reported that mission control had stopped receiving trajectory data from the craft after the apparent accident.
Another source told Interfax that the "emergency situation" occurred in the third stage of the 5:00 pm (1300 GMT) rocket launch.
"Our experts are examining the situation," the Russian space official said.
The news comes just weeks after the end of the US space shuttle programme made Russia the world's only link with the ISS and its alternating multinational crew.
Russia has experienced five launch failures in the past nine months but has until now not had any recent problems with Soyuz rocket missions that fly to the ISS.
Russia in December suffered one its most embarrassing space failures in recent times when three navigation satellites for the new Russian Glonass system crashed into the ocean off Hawaii instead of reaching orbit.
Officials later admitted that a simple fuel miscalculation was to blame. In February, Russia then put its new Geo-IK-2 military satellite into the wrong orbit, rendering it useless for defence purposes.
And only last week, Russia lost its new Express-AM4 digital television, telephone and Internet satellite after a failed launch from Baikonur.(c) 2011 AFP

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Sony announces 'WhiteMagic' - new 3D LCD screen that uses half the powerSony has announced via its webpage the development of a new type of LCD display that uses either half as much power as current same-size LCD displays, or the same amount of power, but doubles the brightness. Called WhiteMagic, the new LCD screen, currently just 3 inches diagonally, achieves these results by employing a third, white pixel to create images on a screen.

A model displays the HTC Evo 3D,during a press conference in Taipei. Taiwan's leading smartphone maker HTC launched its first 3D cellphone onto the local market, picking what a local telecom operator said was an opportune time ahead of the iPhone 5.

Taiwan's leading smartphone maker HTC Wednesday launched its first 3D cellphone onto the local market, picking what a local telecom operator said was an opportune time ahead of the iPhone 5.

The HTC Evo 3D, which is already on sale in the US, carries a 4.3-inch touch screen and allows users to capture and play images that come across as being in three dimensions without the need for specially designed glasses.
"This is very good timing and puts the product on the market before Apple launches its iPhone 5," said Cliff Lai, co-president of Taiwan Mobile, a local cell operator which joined forces with HTC in launching the gadget.
The cellphone, which costs Tw$21,900 ($760), uses Google's Andriod 2.3 platform and enables users to browse 3D images or play games in 3D.
South Korea's LG Electronics launched a 3D mobile phone, LG Optimus 3D, earlier this year.(c) 2011 AFP

The top 10 apps for Android mobile devices account for 43 per cent of usage, according to a new survey.

The typical user of a Google Android-powered smartphone spends 56 minutes a day using apps or on the mobile web, research from Nielsen Smartphone Analytics has found. Two-thirds of that time is spent using apps but Nielsen found that just a few apps are dominating.

The top 10 Android apps make up 43 per cent of time on mobile apps and the top 50 apps account for 61 per cent of time spent. Nielsen did not publish the names of the apps in question.

“With 250,000+ Android apps available at the time of this writing, that means the remaining 249,950+ apps have to compete for the remaining 39 percent of the pie,” Don Kellogg, director of telecom research and insights for Nielsen, wrote in a blog post.

Nielsen says that it has no immediate plans to follow up with details of users of Apple’s iOS platform but says that the Smartphone Analytics survey will track iOS users’ behaviour. The data for the survey is gathered using meters installed in “thousands of iOS and Android smartphones”, Nielsen says.

Earlier this week, Google bought Motorola Mobility, the mobile phone company that had manufactured several Android-powered handsets, in a move that was widely seen as an attempt to acquire ‘defensive’ patents to protect the Android operating system.

New BlackBerrys is improved, but lackluster: Latest Review 2012.Well before the iPhone, BlackBerry gained its "CrackBerry" nickname for its seemingly vital place in users' lives. Lately, however, the surging popularity of Apple's gadget and smartphones running Google's Android software has made the BlackBerry seem less habit-forming.

Intel has changed the launch date of its Cedar Trail-M platform that is targeted for netbooks from September to November. The reason for the delay is a problem with graphics drivers and failing certification for Windows 7. Cedar Trail is the code name being used for Intel’s next generation Atom chips built using the 32nm manufacturing node. A talking point over the Cedar Trail chipset has been that it represents the first netbook platform-based Intel 32nm technology. The platform is described as a unified architecture that packs the processing cores and the graphics processing unit on the same die. The graphics core includes support for DirectX 10.1 and hardware decoding capabilities for HD content, including MPEG2, VC1, AVC, H.264 and Blu-ray 2.0.

Arrested Hacking Over Mobile Stock exchange was hacked
A woman uses her mobile phone to take a picture of the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong. Hong Kong police said on Friday they had arrested a 29-year-old man over a cyber attack on the city's stock exchange website which halted trading in the shares of seven companies.

Hong Kong police said on Friday they had arrested a 29-year-old man over a cyber attack on the city's stock exchange website which halted trading in the shares of seven companies.

Police said they detained the man on Thursday, seizing five computers, two mobile phones and other items, a police spokesman told AFP.
"He is being investigated under the offence of access to a computer with criminal or dishonest intent," the spokesman said, adding that the man was being held for questioning.
The bourse was hit last week by what it called a "malicious" attack which caused firms including banking giant HSBC and flag carrier Cathay Pacific to suspend trading for half a day.
The website of the Hong Kong bourse, the world's most valuable exchange operator, displays listed companies' regulatory filings. The bourse said it had to suspend the trading to ensure investors had equal access to the filings.
The exchange had said its other systems were not affected and trading in its securities and derivatives markets were operating normally.
The hacking was detected after HSBC announced the sale of its United States credit card and retail services business as part of an overhaul to streamline its operations, while Cathay reported its 2011 half-year earning results.
The incident was the second cyber attack on stock exchanges within days after hackers targeted the Zimbabwe stock exchange website two weeks ago, forcing a shutdown of the site.

The iconic Roberts Radio is 80 years old, Life review 2012.
One of its first employees (who still works there) tells Emma Barnett about radio’s early days – and its digital future.

In December 1942, Stan Vandenberghe was 14 and embarking on his first job – his only job, as it turned out – at a small, family-run company with just nine employees, in East Molesey, Surrey.

Harry Roberts, the co-founder of what would become a British institution, had spied Stan outside the factory gates one day waiting for his brother to come out. He offered him a job when he was old enough to leave school. And Stan, as he is known to everyone in the business, is still working for Roberts Radio nearly 70 years later.

Roberts’s leather-bound sets – now the height of retro chic – turn 80 in October; and in its anniversary year, it seems the British public has embraced radio once more.

Despite the lure of television, the internet, Xboxes and the Wii, the latest statistics show that a record 91.7 per cent (47.6 million) of the British adult population listen to the radio every week; and the total weekly amount of time we tune in has swelled to 1,076 million hours.

It is a far cry from Stan’s pessimistic prediction to his boss, Harry Roberts, in the Fifties, when TV was taking off. “I turned to him and said: 'Well that’s that then. Radio’s had it,’ he explains. “Harry said: 'Stan, radio is like bread and butter to people; they will never do without it’. ”

Ice Cream Sandwich will merge the main version of Android with Honeycomb, the version adapted for tablets, so some analysts have speculated that the Nexus Prime may do away with hardware buttons such as “home” and “back” found on smartphones.

The timing of the release means the Nexus Prime is expected to go head-to-head with the fifth version of the iPhone due in stores early in October. It also reportedly features a faster processor, as well as an eight-megapixel camera.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

4G is the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. It is a successor to the 3G and 2G families of standards and IMT-Advanced (International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced) requirements for 4G standards, setting peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 Mbit/s for high mobility communication.

iPhone 4 vs iPhone 3GS - Mobile88 : All About Mobile phone / Handphone The iPhone 4 represents a much larger hardware jump compared to the 3G to 3GS. The iPhone 4 sports quite a number of differences from the 3GS, we'll start off with the screen quality, 320 x 480 pixels against iPhone 4's 640 x 960 pixels, which means the 4G sports HD quality screen. The ... Aesthetically, the 4G is much more squarish and sports a flat back, compared to the 3G . The phone memory also has an upgrade from the 16/32GB to ...

4G - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

4G - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Pre- 4G technologies such as mobile WiMAX and first-release 3G Long term evolution (LTE) have been on the market since 2006 [2] and 2009 [3] [4] [5] respectively, and are often branded as 4G ... However, the cell phone market only brands some of the IMT-2000 standards as 3G (e.g. WCDMA and CDMA2000), but not all (3GPP EDGE, DECT ... Sprint offers a 3G / 4G connection plan, currently available in select cities in the United States. [43] It delivers rates up to 10 Mbit/s. ... 5G - HTC Evo 4G - WiMAX - 4G (disambiguation)

Answers.com - What is the difference between 3G and 4G phones

Answers.com - What is the difference between 3G and 4G phones Mobile Phones question: What is the difference between 3G and 4G phones ? 3G is the current generation of mobile telecommunication standards. It allows simultaneous use of speech and data services and offers. What is the difference between 2g and 3g phones ? 3g has more memory than 4g. What are the differences between 3G and 4G Internet? 4G is much faster. What is the difference between 3G and 4G ? speed 4g has faster downloads and uploads and ...

What is 4G?
- 4G is the short term for fourth-generation wireless, the stage of broadband mobile communications that will supercede the third generation (3G). While neither standards bodies nor carriers have concretely defined or agreed upon what exactly 4G will be, it is expected that end-to-end IP and high-quality streaming video will be among 4G's distinguishing features. Fourth generation networks are likely to use a combination of WiMAX and WiFi.

How to Root Your EVO 4G Program 2012
The currently unreleased HTC EVO 4G has already been rooted, and a new guide is now available, which covers all the steps you need to do this on your device.
For people unfamiliar with Android development: Rooting is one of the things most ‘power’ users do with their Android device when they get it. It enables a lot of features that are normally locked by Google, such as using certain applications and flashing custom ROM’s.
This root method, described by XDA member toastcfh, will:Originally posted by toastcfh

wipe all of your data so brace for that. backup or what not

Allow you to flash custom roms

Boot into a custom recovery

Write to system, boot and recovery partitions through recovery

There are however some things that are not possible with this method:

Write to system or recovery while in android

Flash a custom recovery that can be booted into by holding vol down and powering on

These things will probably be possible in future though, just a manner of waiting. Also, rooting might cause the 4G function to break.
Make sure you read the instructions very carefully, the writer of the guide, neither the developer of the root, neither xda-developers is responsible for any problems with your device that might occur when using this method.HTC Evo Shift 4G has ROM Manager and ClockworkMod Recovery available
The HTC Evo Shift 4G now has support for ROM Manager and ClockworkMod Recovery, if you’re the hacking type. There were some concerns over recovery being able to backup Sprint’s WiMax keys. but that seems to have been resolved now, which was the only thing left stopping the process from installing correctly.

You’ll need to be sure your Evo Shift is rooted first, and then the easiest way to get it going is to use the ROM Manager, which you can get here as well. The ClockworkMod Recovery version for the Evo Shift is listed as version 3.0.1.4, and you can download it manually from this location, just look for “Evo Shift” in the download list.Simple Root Unlocks HTC Evo 4G in One ClickWindows: Rooting an Android phone often involves entering commands into a terminal or working through multi-step procedures. Not so with the Sprint Evo 4G, which you can root and modify to your heart's content with a one-click Simple Root tool.

Rooting methods are always changing, especially with all the Android phones out there. Check out our always up-to-date rooting guide for the most recent information on rooting your particular device.

Springing from the XDA forums, this app also offers one-click buttons for unlocking your phone's flash memory and flash your chosen firmware image onto your 4G phone, after you connect it via USB. It's a much more simple process than rooting a Droid, and vastly easier than unlocking an older G1 or other Android model.Simple Root is a free download for Windows systems. As with all rooting or firmware-modifying tools, be aware that bad things can happen, and you should make backups where you can.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Energy Storage for Solar Power Free Step 10
Startup BrightSource announces a new system that could allow future solar plants to run at night.

Soler power Free step top 10

Stored sunlight: A rendering shows BrightSource’s new thermal storage design. The two large tanks will store molten salt, which can be used to generate steam to drive a turbine.
Credit: BrightSource.

BrightSource Energy has become the latest solar thermal power company to develop a system for generating power when the sun isn't shining. The company says the technology can lower the cost of solar power and make it more reliable, helping it compete with conventional sources of electricity.
The company, based in Oakland, California, is building one of the world's largest solar thermal power plants. The 392-megawatt solar plant in Ivanpah, California, however, will not include the storage technology. Instead, BrightSource is working with utilities to determine which future projects could best benefit from storage.
Solar thermal systems use mirrors to focus sunlight, generating temperatures high enough to produce steam to drive a turbine. One of the advantages of the solar thermal approach, versus conventional photovoltaics that convert sunlight directly into electricity, is that heat can be stored cheaply and used when needed to generate electricity. In all solar thermal plants, some heat is stored in the fluids circulating through the system. This evens out any short fluctuations in sunlight and lets the plant generate electricity for some time after the sun goes down. But adding storage systems would let the plant ride out longer periods of cloud cover and generate power well into, or even throughout, the night. Such long-term storage could be needed if solar is to provide a large share of the total power supply.
BrightSource is using a variation on an approach to storage that's a decade old: heating up a molten salt—typically, a combination of sodium and potassium nitride—and then storing it in a tank. To generate electricity, the molten salt is pumped through a heat exchanger to generate steam. BrightSource CEO John Woolard says one big factor in making this technology economically attractive is the use of power towers—in which mirrors focus sunlight on a central tower—that generate higher temperatures than other solar thermal designs. That higher temperature makes it possible to store more energy using a smaller amount of molten salt. "It's a much more efficient system and much more cost effective, overall," he says.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 blocked in Europe

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will have to be removed from sale across Europe following a judgment in a German court.

The tablet, which launched in Britain last week, must now be removed from shelves and Samsung must stop marketing it. According to some retailers, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 became the fastest-selling tablet since the iPad 2 when it launched in Britain.

The Regional Court of Dusseldorf has granted Apple a preliminary injunction against the sale and marketing of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 across all of Europe except the Netherlands. It is possible to apply for a pan-European injunction in any country which, if upheld, covers all of the EU. The judge backed Apple’s claim that Samsung’s tablet had infringed on its intellectual property and copied elements of the iPad 2.

While Samsung can appeal against the judgment, the injunction will still stand in the meantime. Any appeal would be heard in around four weeks' time and would be heard by the same judge.

Intellectual property analyst Florian Muller said that Apple had a separate lawsuit underway in the Netherlands. He wrote in a blogpost: "The exception of the Netherlands is due to the aforementioned separate legal proceeding in that country. That exception relates only to Samsung's Korean parent company, not to the German subsidiary."

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the latest tablet computer from the Korean manufacturer. The original version of the Galaxy Tab was a 7-inch tablet but this year’s model adopts a similar screen size to the iPad and is marginally thinner than the iPad 2.
An Apple spokesman said: "It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging. This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."
A Samsung spokesman said the company could not comment on legal proceedings.
The is the second injunction that Apple has obtained against Samsung’s rival tablet. The Australian launch of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was delayed indefinitely last week after Apple filed a complaint with the Federal Court of Australia.
Apple sued Samsung in April this year for infringement of patents and trademarks; a few days later, Samsung issued a counter-claim.

'HiPhone 5', fake of Apple’s latest iPhone, on sale in China.
A fake version of Apple’s latest iPhone – named the hiPhone 5 – has hit the Chinese market.
The handset is selling for as little as 200 yuan (£19) on China’s biggest e-commerce site Taobao compared to the £510 price tag for an iPhone 4 from the Apple UK website.

Its design is said to have been based on leaked images of the yet-to-be-launched iPhone 5 and is thinner and with less rounded edges than the existing iPhone 4, Shanghai-based daily newspaper Metro Express reported. However, it is extremely light and feels almost like a plastic toy, it added.

Western governments have repeatedly criticised China for widespread violation of intellectual property rights, but pirated goods from branded watches, to bags and computer software can be easily found in shops.

Last month, an American blogger set off a media storm after she posted pictures of an elaborate fake Apple Store in Kunming, selling genuine if unauthorised iPhones, Macbooks and other widely popular Apple products.

Reuters also uncovered a lookalike of the Swedish furniture giant Ikea in the southwestern Chinese city.

China said Tuesday it was hit by nearly 500,000 cyberattacks last year, about half of which originated from foreign countries including the United States and India.

The news comes just days after US firm McAfee said it had uncovered a massive global cyber spying campaign it described as a "five-year targeted operation" by one unnamed actor -- which many analysts said was China.
According to a government report, most of the attacks on China came in the form of Trojan software -- a malicious programme that masquerades as an application -- the official Xinhua news agency said.
Nearly 15 percent of the destructive programmes came from IP addresses in the United States, while another eight percent originated in India, said the report by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Centre.
China, which has the world's largest online population with 485 million users, has itself been accused of spearheading online attacks on government agencies and companies, although Beijing has always denied this.
Chinese state media lambasted claims that China was behind the sophisticated hacking effort uncovered by McAfee, calling them "irresponsible".
According to the US computer security firm, victims of the attack included the governments of Canada, India, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States and Vietnam.
In June, Internet giant Google said a cyber-spying campaign originating in China had targeted Gmail accounts of senior US officials, military personnel, journalists and Chinese political activists.
The computers of Australia's prime minister, foreign and defence ministers were also suspected of being hacked in March, with China under suspicion.(c) 2011 AFP

While roofs across the world sport photovoltaic solar panels to convert sunlight into electricity, a Duke University engineer believes a novel hybrid system can wring even more useful energy out of the sun's rays.

Instead of systems based on standard solar panels, Duke engineer Nico Hotz proposes a hybrid option in which sunlight heats a combination of water and methanol in a maze of glass tubes on a rooftop. After two catalytic reactions, the system produces hydrogen much more efficiently than current technology without significant impurities. The resulting hydrogen can be stored and used on demand in fuel cells.
For his analysis, Hotz compared the hybrid system to three different technologies in terms of their exergetic performance. Exergy is a way of describing how much of a given quantity of energy can theoretically be converted to useful work.
"The hybrid system achieved exergetic efficiencies of 28.5 percent in the summer and 18.5 percent in the winter, compared to 5 to 15 percent for the conventional systems in the summer, and 2.5 to 5 percent in the winter," said Hotz, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering.
The paper describing the results of Hotz's analysis was named the top paper during the ASME Energy Sustainability Fuel Cell 2011 conference in Washington, D.C. Hotz recently joined the Duke faculty after completing post-graduate work at the University of California-Berkeley, where he analyzed a model of the new system. He is currently constructing one of the systems at Duke to test whether or not the theoretical efficiencies are born out experimentally.
Hotz's comparisons took place during the months of July and February in order to measure each system's performance during summer and winter months.
Like other solar-based systems, the hybrid system begins with the collection of sunlight. Then things get different. While the hybrid device might look like a traditional solar collector from the distance, it is actually a series of copper tubes coated with a thin layer of aluminum and aluminum oxide and partly filled with catalytic nanoparticles. A combination of water and methanol flows through the tubes, which are sealed in a vacuum.
"This set-up allows up to 95 percent of the sunlight to be absorbed with very little being lost as heat to the surroundings," Hotz said. "This is crucial because it permits us to achieve temperatures of well over 200 degrees Celsius within the tubes. By comparison, a standard solar collector can only heat water between 60 and 70 degrees Celsius."
Once the evaporated liquid achieves these higher temperatures, tiny amounts of a catalyst are added, which produces hydrogen. This combination of high temperature and added catalysts produces hydrogen very efficiently, Hotz said. The resulting hydrogen can then be immediately directed to a fuel cell to provide electricity to a building during the day, or compressed and stored in a tank to provide power later.
The three systems examined in the analysis were the standard photovoltaic cell which converts sunlight directly into electricity to then split water electrolytically into hydrogen and oxygen; a photocatalytic system producing hydrogen similar to Hotz's system, but simpler and not mature yet; and a system in which photovoltaic cells turn sunlight into electricity which is then stored in different types of batteries (with lithium ion being the most efficient).
"We performed a cost analysis and found that the hybrid solar-methanol is the least expensive solution, considering the total installation costs of $7,900 if designed to fulfill the requirements in summer, although this is still much more expensive than a conventional fossil fuel-fed generator," Hotz said.
Costs and efficiencies of systems can vary widely depending on location – since the roof-mounted collectors that could provide all the building's needs in summer might not be enough for winter. A rooftop system large enough to supply all of a winter's electrical needs would produce more energy than needed in summer, so the owner could decide to shut down portions of the rooftop structure or, if possible, sell excess energy back to the grid.
"The installation costs per year including the fuel costs, and the price per amount of electricity produced, however showed that the (hybrid) solar scenarios can compete with the fossil fuel-based system to some degree," Hotz said. 'In summer, the first and third scenarios, as well as the hybrid system, are cheaper than a propane- or diesel-combusting generator."
This could be an important consideration, especially if a structure is to be located in a remote area where traditional forms of energy would be too difficult or expensive to obtain.
Provided by Duke University (news : web)

Facebook takes on Blackberry Messenger with new app.

Facebook has launched its own dedicated instant messaging mobile app in a bid to take on Blackberry Messenger.

The app, which is called Facebook Messenger, launched yesterday in the US only, and lets members of the social networking site send instant messages on their mobile for free to anyone in their 'friends' list.

In what is a direct bid to rival Blackberry’s hugely popular Messenger service (BBM), the new Facebook app, also allows people to send messages to friends on their mobile contacts list and push out group messages too. The timing is apt, as BBM has just received a huge spate of publicity, having become the communication tool of choice for many London rioters, as well as a useful channel for those trying to warn each other away from areas dominated by violence. RIM, the parent company of the phone, has agreed to work with police on their investigations trying to locate and pin down the London rioters.

BBM is understood to have more than 45 million users around the world. Facebook, with more than 750 million users worldwide, will be hoping to be able to steal away some of it market share in the growing mobile instant messenger market. Google+, the search giant’s new social network, introduced Huddle earlier this year – which allows instant messaging (group and one-to-one) on mobiles and iMessage, Apple’s instant mobile messaging service, is coming out later this year, forming a central part of the new iOS 5’s software.

The free Facebook Messenger app is available on both Android and iOS devices, but there are no dates set for when it will be made available outside of the US.

"More and more of us rely on our phones to send and receive messages. But it isn't always easy to know the best way to reach someone on their phone. Should you send an email or text? Which will they check first? Did they even get your last message?" wrote Facebook engineer Lucy Zhang in a blog post explaining the new service. "We think messaging should be easier than that. You should be able to write a message, click 'Send' and know that you will reach the person right away."

Zhang originally created Beluga, the group messaging service acquired by Facebook earlier this year. The majority of the technology underpinning the new Facebook app has come from Beluga’s code.

Novel technology allows LCDs to recycle energy.We've all worried about the charge on our smartphone or laptop running down when we have no access to an electrical outlet. But new technology developed by researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science could finally help solve the problem.

The UCLA engineers have created a novel concept for harvesting and recycling energy for electronic devices — one that involves equipping these devices' LCD screens with built-in photovoltaic polarizers, allowing them to convert ambient light, sunlight and their own backlight into electricity.
LCDs, or liquid crystal displays, are used in many of today's electronic devices, including smartphones, TV screens, computer monitors, laptops and tablet computers. They work by using two polarized sheets that let only a certain amount of a device's backlight pass through. Tiny liquid crystal molecules are sandwiched between the two polarizers, and these crystals can be switched by tiny transistors to act as light valves. Manipulating each light valve, or pixel, lets a certain amount of the backlight escape; millions of pixels are combined to create images on LCDs.
The UCLA Engineering team created a new type of energy-harvesting polarizer for LCDs called a polarizing organic photovoltaic, which can potentially boost the function of an LCD by working simultaneously as a polarizer, a photovoltaic device and an ambient light or sunlight photovoltaic panel.
Their research findings are currently available in the online edition of the journal Advanced Materials and will be published in a forthcoming print issue of the journal.
"I believe this is a game-changer invention to improve the efficiency of LCD displays," said Yang Yang, a professor of materials science at UCLA Engineering and principal investigator on the research. "In addition, these polarizers can also be used as regular solar cells to harvest indoor or outdoor light. So next time you are on the beach, you could charge your iPhone via sunlight."
From the point of view of energy use, current LCD polarizers are inefficient, the researchers said. A device's backlight can consume 80 to 90 percent of the device's power. But as much as 75 percent of the light generated is lost through the polarizers. A polarizing organic photovoltaic LCD could recover much of that unused energy.
"In the near future, we would like to increase the efficiency of the polarizing organic photovoltaics, and eventually we hope to work with electronic manufacturers to integrate our technology into real products", Yang said. "We hope this energy-saving LCD will become a mainstream technology in displays."
"Our coating method is simple, and it can be applied in the future in large-area manufacturing processes," said Rui Zhu, a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA Engineering and the paper's lead author.
"The polarizing organic photovoltaic cell demonstrated by Professor Yang's research group can potentially harvest 75 percent of the wasted photons from LCD backlight and turn them back into electricity," said Youssry Boutros, program director for the Intel Labs Academic Research Office, which supported the research. "The strong collaboration between this group at UCLA Engineering and other top groups has led to higher cell efficiencies, increasing the potential for harvesting energy. This approach is interesting in its own right and at the same time synergetic with several other projects we are funding through the Intel Labs Academic Research Office." More information:http://onlinelibra … 514/abstract
Provided by University of California Los Angeles (news : web)

Saturday, August 6, 2011

A customer looks at the Apple iPhone 4. The FBI joined the booming mobile phone app market with the launch of a tool to help parents find missing kids.

The FBI joined the booming mobile phone app market on Friday with the launch of a tool to help parents find missing kids.

"You're shopping at the mall with your children when one of them suddenly disappears. A quick search of the nearby area is unsuccessful. What do you do?" the promotional blurb for the application says.
The answer? If you have the free FBI app -- which is only available for iPhones at the moment -- and stored photos and vital information about your children on it, the data you need to be reunited with your missing child would be "literally right at hand."
Parents using the app "can show the pictures and provide physical identifiers such as height and weight to security or police officers on the spot" or email the key information to the authorities using a special tab on the app in the event their child goes missing.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a child goes missing in the United States every 40 seconds, and "many never return home."
The FBI has plans to expand the app for use on other mobile devices, and to add more features.

Taiwan IT giant Foxconn -- hit by a spate of suicides at its Chinese plants -- plans to replace 500,000 workers with robots in the next three years, state media reported.

Taiwan IT giant Foxconn -- hit by a spate of suicides at its Chinese plants -- plans to replace 500,000 workers with robots in the next three years, state media reported Monday.

Foxconn -- the world's largest maker of computer components, which assembles products for Apple, Sony and Nokia -- plans to use one million robots to do "simple" work, China Business News quoted chairman Terry Gou saying.
Gou announced the plan to 10,000 staff at a company event in Shenzhen on Friday, various media reports said.Foxconn currently has 10,000 robots doing painting, welding and assembly tasks. It will increase that number to 300,000 next year and to one million in 2014, the report said.
A Foxconn spokesman could not be immediately reached by AFP for comment.
The Taiwan-based company employs more than one million workers at its Chinese plants, about half of them based in its main facility in the southern city of Shenzhen.
At least 14 workers have died in apparent suicides since last year, most of them in Shenzhen. Activists blamed the deaths on tough working conditions and have called for better treatment of staff.
Foxconn has been expanding its workforce in other parts of China as it seeks to scale back the size of its Shenzhen plant.
The firm opened a $2 billion Chengdu plant in October, according to China's state-run Xinhua news agency.

NASA launches spacecraft on 5-year trip to Jupiter
In this photo provided by NASA, an Atlas V rocket launches with the Juno spacecraft payload from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Friday, Aug. 5, 2011. NASA launched the spacecraft atop an unmanned rocket that blasted into a clear midday sky as scientists cheered and yelled "Go Juno!" It was the first step in Juno's 1.7 billion-mile voyage to the gas giant Jupiter, just two planets away but altogether different from Earth and next-door neighbor Mars. (AP Photo/NASA, Bill Ingalls).

(AP) -- A sun-powered robotic explorer named Juno rocketed away Friday on a five-year journey to Jupiter, the solar system's most massive and ancient planet.

Internet is Twenty years old It was twenty years ago today/ Tim Berners-Lee taught the world to play/ Although 20 years ago he would have sworn/ That there wouldn’t have been so much porn. That’s right – the world’s first website, a placeholder page written by Sir Berners-Lee way back on August 6, 1991 in the then-nascent Hypertext Mark-Up Language, is celebrating its 20th birthday today. And, on this important anniversary, we ask what hath the web wrought?
On March 13th, 2009 the World Wide Web will turn 20 years old. Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented this world-changing layer on top of the Internet on this day in 1989. It's hard to overstate the impact this young technology has had already and it's even more exciting to think about where it's going in the future.
Berners-Lee has some great ideas about where the web should go next. His vision is of a major advance that could serve as the foundation for innovations that we can't even imagine today.
In the past two decades we’ve been given ecommerce and spam, we’ve torn down the music, news, and publishing industries, and we’ve LOLed at more CATS than we can count. We’ve seen empires rise and fall, the dissolution of the line between public and private, and the end of enforceable copyright. We’ve seen new modes of communication drive out unwanted regimes at home and abroad and we’ve heard the endless howl of a million voices calling out at once, most of them in comments on this site.
We’ve also seen lots of the aforementioned porn.
The original (can there be an original?) page is mirrored here and it’s a fascinating look at the seed crystal that catalyzed change to the world as we knew it in those heady pre-Internet days. Also porn.
Happy birthday, Internet. Here’s to another 20 happy, healthy years.
Twenty years ago, in a research establishment in the Swiss Alps, a British-born computer scientist dreamt up a new way for academics to share information around the globe.
Little did he realise that his invention would break out from the confines of academia and give birth to the world wide web.
Two decades on, there are over 200 million websites and over one trillion unique URLs. An astounding 1.6 billion people use the web worldwide, and here in the UK the figure stands at over 70 per cent of the population.